


Handprints

by beeeinyourbonnet



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Castle, F/M, Fluff, Rumbelle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 11:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeeinyourbonnet/pseuds/beeeinyourbonnet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Rumpelstiltskin loses things in the Dark Castle. It's a good thing he has a caretaker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handprints

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SignCherie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SignCherie/gifts).



Rumpelstiltskin thundered down the stairs toward the kitchen, teeth and fists clenched tight enough to vibrate. He could have just materialized down, but he wanted his housekeeper to hear him coming, to feel the anticipation of knowing that he was about to bring a smack down.

“Belle!” He flung the kitchen door open, hoping to find her cowering in fear. Instead, he found his pretty little maid leaning against the table, arms folded and watching him. He bared his teeth.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, and he didn’t like the way she was smiling—like he was some child raging over a lost snack. He wasn’t a child. He was the Dark One, damn it, and he’d lost more than a snack.

“Where’s my spell book?”

“Your spell book?”

“Yes.” He tried to regain his usual calm, but it was much easier to rage for the moment, because he needed all of his concentration to remember the formula that he needed to write in his book. “It was on the bench at the wheel, and now it’s gone. Where did you put it?”

“I didn’t touch it.” She raised her hands as if to show they were empty, and he was glad to see that some of the amusement had left her face. It calmed him a fraction.

“Are you sure, dearie?” His fingers clenched and unclenched at his side. “It is your job to keep things neat. I promise not to be angry if you just tell me where it is.” He let out a tittering giggle, and then Belle’s amusement was back, and her lips were pursed.

“Well, that’s an empty promise—you’re already angry.”

His nose twitched. “Belle, where is it.”

She sighed, pushing herself off the table, and he tried not to cackle in gleeful triumph. He knew it. He knew she’d done something with it.

“Good, good. Go—what are you doing?” His voice was high-pitched, even for him, and he stared down at Belle’s fingers, which were now loosely wrapped around his palm.

“ _We_ are going to go look for it. Come on, if it’s so important, then don’t dawdle.” She gave his hand a tug, and his heart stuttered in his chest. He was going to have an apoplexy.

“Where?” he asked, feeling stupid as he let her lead him around in his own castle, but incapable of doing anything to stop it.

“You said the last place you saw it was your bench?”

She turned to look at him for confirmation, and he bobbed his head up and down. Her acknowledging smile felt like a prize, and he considered evaporating away right then and locking himself in his tower for the rest of forever.

“And then where did you go?”

“Ah.” He tried to think, forcing himself to repeat his formula every few seconds. If he forgot it because of her, his housekeeper was going to have a lot to answer for. “You brought tea.”

“And then?” They had reached his wheel, and all he could do when she let go of his hand to search the surrounding area was stand and stare at his palm dumbly.

“And then—then I went up to the tower and started working.”

Coming up empty-handed, she took his hand again and started leading him to the stairs. He couldn’t deny the emptiness in his hand when she’d let go of it any more than he could deny the way he felt like a tiny piece of him had been put back when she took it again.

She threw the door open when they arrived, and before he could even step through the threshold, she had whirled around and folded her arms. His hand felt empty again, but he didn’t have time to worry about that because Belle was tapping her foot and flaring her nostrils like he’d done something horrible.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” she said, and he had the insane urge to ask her to scold him with his name again.

“Yes, dearie?” His hands made feeble attempts at one of his flippant twirls, but even they were deflated by the piercing force of her glare.

“It’s on your table.”

All of his usual expressions faded from his face to be replaced by a real frown. “What? No it’s not.”

“Yes it is. It’s right there. Take a look.” She jabbed her finger behind her, and he was tempted to just dismiss her to save himself the embarrassment of her possibly being right, but he couldn’t. Instead, he peeked around her.

Sure enough, his book was on his work table. It was covered by a scroll which would have hidden it from view while he was seated, but from this angle, it was in plain sight. He was glad that his skin didn’t blush.

He cleared his throat, and he knew Belle wanted to laugh by the way she was swirling her lips around, like she couldn’t quite get them to stop spreading into a grin. “Well. I expect dinner in an hour. Don’t be late, dearie.”

He swept past her, and there was the unmistakable sound of a chuckle.

“Yes, sir,” she said, curtsying when he reached the other side of his table, and could see her again.

A second later, she was gone, leaving him alone with his book. He reached for a quill, and then stopped halfway there, watching his hand. It didn’t look any different—he knew it wouldn’t—but no matter which way he turned and tilted it, he couldn’t shake the lingering feeling that there was a piece missing. He brought his hand back over and studied his palm, knowing that if he traced the edges of the emptiness, the outline would form the shape of a dainty little hand.


End file.
